Last week Sam Rainer published new research on what he calls the “new wave of pastors” stepping into struggling churches. His conclusion cuts against most revitalization seminars I have sat through: the future of revitalization will depend less on better methods and more on better-prepared leaders.
Across hundreds of revitalization efforts, the leaders making the difference share no single age, personality, or ministry style. What they share is character. Optimism anchored in realism. Grit for a long, slow road. Prayer treated as battle strategy. An outward gaze toward the neighborhood. A willingness to be held accountable. None of these is a technique. All of them are formation.
The Scriptures taught this long before the seminars did. When God set Ezekiel before a valley of dry bones, He did not hand the prophet a strategy; He breathed through a formed man (Ezekiel 37:4-10). Jesus told the dying church in Sardis, “Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die” (Revelation 3:2). And Paul told Timothy to entrust the gospel “to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others” (2 Timothy 2:2).
Plenty of declining churches have plans. What they lack is leaders formed to stay in hard places, whose conviction outlasts their discouragement.
Formation starts with knowing where God has planted you. Before any plan, a revitalizer has to exegete the community: the people on those streets, the languages in those homes, the needs pressing at those doors. That is why we built Know Your Context, a free tool that profiles your community’s demographics, languages, needs, and faith, so your church can begin with the people God gave you instead of a program: carryingthecross.com/know-your-context.
What would change in your church if leadership formation became the top priority?
